I agree the MX440 is a great card. It's one of my favorites in my collection because it was inexpensive, has VGA and DVI, is passively cooled, supports a wide range of drivers, and has worked fine on a K6-3, PIII, and K7 system. Mine is currently paired with a K6-3+ 600MHz and I think it's a good match. The only thing to look out for is the bus width, some are 64-bit and some are 128-bit, the latter being more desirable. You'll also want to avoid the later AGP 8x cards as they may be less compatible with older boards.

other than occasional driver issues you can put in any agp card that has a driver. At some point you'll encounter games where the P2 becomes the limitation, that's why i think its ok for a TNT2 or above - of course as future vintage systems somehow find their way into your collection you'll want to try different combinations so having a spare cards (or few!) will be more attractive 😀

The fastest AGP 2x card is the GeForce 6800 Ultra with two cutouts at slot.
A very rare card.
Then comes the Radeon 9800XT.
Due to the kinks of Asus with their Vio module, they can be unstable.

There remains something like the RADEON 8500/ 9200 /9500 or the GForce FX 5200 /5600/5700.

They are also readily available and relatively cheap.
Why mx440?

Fastest AGP 3.3v compatible card is Galaxy GeForce 7950GT.

GeForce 4 MX 440/460 seems about right for PII 400. If you're feeling generous, you may look for GeForce 3 Ti 200.

The Serpent Rider wrote on 2023-06-06, 15:15:

Fastest AGP 3.3v compatible card is Galaxy GeForce 7950GT.

Honestly, I didn't know.
Need to google about this monster. But it's scary to even imagine the price.

When the bottleneck is the CPU rather than the GPU, games slow down much nicer.
Smoother somehow, and not much felt that only 15FPS.

The Radeon 9200 defenetly works with 89MHz AGP (133 FSB for 440BX) and has excellent compatibility with "pre-XP era" games
I used it to play Need for Speed ​​on an 800 Celeron Coppermine at 2003. Much nicer than on gforce 2 gts

@all Thanks a lot for your info.

@shevalier Why the mx440? Well, that is simple. I read about it during my research and it seemed to be a good direct 7 card that is obtainable at a decent price. But of course, this does not mean that it is the best and there are no better options out there.

I will also check out the other cards you have mentioned.

I think compatibility is the best thing to consider here. You can buy fast AGP cards that will work but you could be wasting your money as they wouldn't be fully utilized. As others have said the Geforce 4 MX 440 is a great card for a P2-P3 system because they are still fairly cheap and they will run just as good, if not better than cards from the era. In a perfect world I would go with a TNT2 or Voodoo 3 but the Voodoo cards are pretty much out of the question these days. A good Geforce 2 card will do you good as well but even those are getting pricy. I would say the Geforce 4 MX 440 is the best choice. An ATI radeon 9600 XT would be a good choice too but I think probably too powerful for the system. Its more of a x4 AGP card and may not work in a 3.3v AGP mobo. I know the MX440 works though.

What you should be asking is which is the optimal graphics card for that motherboard and CPU. While the GeForce 7950 GT is technically the fastest card that can fit into that AGP slot, it would be a huge waste to install it in that system. Not to mention that it would have terrible compatibility with Win9x games.

I concur with the others that either a GeForce 2 GTS or a GeForce 4 MX440 (128-bit) are likely the best choices in terms of price and performance for a P2-400. However, some later revisions of the Asus P2B might be able to take Coppermine CPUs using a slotket adapter. If you do end up with one of those, a GeForce 3 could be worthwhile as well.

Sly_Botts wrote on 2023-06-06, 22:00:

I think compatibility is the best thing to consider here. You can buy fast AGP cards that will work but you could be wasting your money as they wouldn't be fully utilized. As others have said the Geforce 4 MX 440 is a great card for a P2-P3 system because they are still fairly cheap and they will run just as good, if not better than cards from the era. In a perfect world I would go with a TNT2 or Voodoo 3 but the Voodoo cards are pretty much out of the question these days. A good Geforce 2 card will do you good as well but even those are getting pricy. I would say the Geforce 4 MX 440 is the best choice. An ATI radeon 9600 XT would be a good choice too but I think probably too powerful for the system. Its more of a x4 AGP card and may not work in a 3.3v AGP mobo. I know the MX440 works though.

Thanks for your reply. Have to agree that getting a Voodoo 3 card would be a perfect match for a late 90s system. Unfortunately, the Voodoo 3 is too expensive to seriously consider it for a first build. I am already grateful that I got a complete p 2 400 system with the TNT 2. The only component missing is the sound card.

I also think that the TNT 2 would be good card from 97 to 99 and it might even have a fighting chance for some early 2000 games. I am still curious to try the max setting out and getting a video card from the Hardware t&l area might help out the cpu a lot.

When looking around on youtube I found out that I am not the only person interested in such stuff. I even saw people using p2 with a geforce fx card to play around with some games. Half-Life looked rather good with that configuration. Had never dreamed of going that far.

@Joseph_Joestar Thanks for your reply. You are totally right I should worded my question in a different way.

Asking for the optimal graphics for that board sounds way better.

I do not know the exact number of the mainboard. I won't know it before Monday when the rig arrives but in case the mb supports a p3 cpu I have also considered getting a higher clocked pentium 3.

If I have read the cpu list correctly some asus p2boards support up to 800mhz??? I am not sure though and need to double-check.

theiceman085 wrote on 2023-06-07, 07:50:

Have to agree that getting a Voodoo 3 card would be a perfect match for a late 90s system. Unfortunately, the Voodoo 3 is too expensive to seriously consider it for a first build.

Yeah on ebay prices have gone out of hand, but it is still possible to find them elsewhere at reasonable prices. Plenty of Voodoos are still forgotten in storage with their owners having no idea what kind of prices they are fetching these days and occasionally they can pop up on local sites for much cheaper. Though you need to keep an eye for them pretty vigilantly and patiently or someone else will snatch them first.

But honestly you can do without one just fine, in my opinion their biggest strenght is their image quality. They aren't very fast with later Glide games and compatibility with earlier glide games isn't perfect.

Sombrero wrote on 2023-06-07, 08:15:

theiceman085 wrote on 2023-06-07, 07:50:

Have to agree that getting a Voodoo 3 card would be a perfect match for a late 90s system. Unfortunately, the Voodoo 3 is too expensive to seriously consider it for a first build.

Yeah on ebay prices have gone out of hand, but it is still possible to find them elsewhere at reasonable prices. Plenty of Voodoos are still forgotten in storage with their owners having no idea what kind of prices they are fetching these days and occasionally they can pop up on local sites for much cheaper. Though you need to keep an eye for them pretty vigilantly and patiently or someone else will snatch them first.

But honestly you can do without one just fine, in my opinion their biggest strenght is their image quality. They aren't very fast with later Glide games and compatibility with earlier glide games isn't perfect.

totally agree with that, voodoo simply isn't worth the price imo. when all kinds of agp cards are available very few games are disadvantaged by not having one

Sombrero wrote on 2023-06-07, 08:15:

theiceman085 wrote on 2023-06-07, 07:50:

Have to agree that getting a Voodoo 3 card would be a perfect match for a late 90s system. Unfortunately, the Voodoo 3 is too expensive to seriously consider for a first build.

Yeah on ebay prices have gone out of hand, but it is still possible to find them elsewhere at reasonable prices. Plenty of Voodoos are still forgotten in storage with their owners having no idea what kind of prices they are fetching these days and occasionally they can pop up on local sites for much cheaper. Though you need to keep an eye for them pretty vigilantly and patiently or someone else will snatch them first.

But honestly, you can do without one just fine, in my opinion, their biggest strength is their image quality. They aren't very fast with later Glide games and compatibility with earlier Glide games isn't perfect.

Thanks for the info. Then I might keep my eyes open. I would not mind owning Voodoo 3 for collecting and gaming purposes. But there is no need to rush for that.

Having a glide card would be very cool of course but I am not sure if I need it for pure gaming purposes. Of course, using Voodoo cards for earlier glide games would be the best way to play them but I also come across some opinions that for earlier glide games the compatibility for earlier glide games is not perfect on the Voodoo 3 as you said.

And from 98 or 99 onwards (please correct me if am wrong) Direct3d and OpenGL started to catch up with glide quality-wise minus some expectations of course. I think Unreal is one of the most famous expectations. But again feel free to correct me if I am wrong.

I think the best path for earlier glide games would be a single Voodoo 2 card or maybe even an SLI configuration. But like always with 3dfx cards the cost would be massive. So I am not considering it seriously.

@gerry Thx for your opinion as well.

theiceman085 wrote on 2023-06-07, 08:50:

And from 98 or 99 onwards (please correct me if am wrong) Direct3d and OpenGL started to catch up with glide quality-wise minus some expectations of course. I think Unreal is one of the most famous expectations. But again feel free to correct me if I am wrong.

I don't know how many games there are that support both Glide and D3D/OGL and look better on Glide, but I'm willing to bet that list is very short. I'm also willing to bet there are more games from the 90s that support 32-bit colours and actually make use of them, which is of course something V3 can't do.

Color banding in Unreal Tournaments intro always hits me in the face even though I've never noticed it in game.

theiceman085 wrote on 2023-06-07, 07:50:

Asking for the optimal graphics for that board sounds way better.

I would like to have the FX ultra 5200/5600/5700.

Ordinary5200/5700 do not have very good perfomance, but the "ultra" of this series are very advanced and look nice.

theiceman085 wrote on 2023-06-07, 07:50:

If I have read the cpu list correctly some asus p2boards support up to 800mhz??? I am not sure though and need to double-check.

Almost all 440BX slot motherboards support P3-S Tualatin.
Through the appropriate slotket, of course. And BIOS modification

@Sombrero Thanks for your reply. Yes the missing 32 bit support of the Voodoo 3 was big thing back then und was also mentioned as a negative aspect in the V3 reviews back then.

I still think that haven V3 would be cool just for the sake of having out but for practical reasons there are other options that are cheaper better.

shevalier wrote on 2023-06-07, 09:42:

I would like to have the FX ultra 5200/5600/5700. […]
Show full quote

theiceman085 wrote on 2023-06-07, 07:50:

Asking for the optimal graphics for that board sounds way better.

I would like to have the FX ultra 5200/5600/5700.

Ordinary5200/5700 do not have very good perfomance, but the "ultra" of this series are very advanced and look nice.

theiceman085 wrote on 2023-06-07, 07:50:

If I have read the cpu list correctly some asus p2boards support up to 800mhz??? I am not sure though and need to double-check.

Almost all 440BX slot motherboards support P3-S Tualatin.
Through the appropriate slotket, of course. And BIOS modification

Thanks for the info about the Socke 440Bx boards.

I will also check out reviews and the availability and price for the FX Ultra line. If I can get them easily they would be good option.

As mentioned above some people on youtube were playing around with that card and p2 with various games and it looked interesting enough to spark my interest to try the fx cards out by myself if I can find one at a good price.

I own an ASUS P2B rev 1.10 I believe. It has the proper power regulator so I am able to use Coppermine Slot 1 CPU's and SLotket with socket 370 Pentium 3 cpu. I'm currently running a Pentium 3 900mhz CPU on the P2B mobo using a slotket with the fsb at 100mhz and 512mb of RAM. (Overkill). I use a Voodoo 3 3000 agp for video but I have tested many graphics cards on the system. Gforce 4 ti, and the mx 440. The Mx 440 was perfect. (aside from the Voodoo 3) and I did notice the faster CPU made a difference. You should have no trouble finding a cheap coppermine slot 1 Pentium 3 thats faster than 400mhz. Just make sure its a 100mhz fsb slot 1.

Sly_Botts wrote on 2023-06-11, 17:42:

I own an ASUS P2B rev 1.10 I believe. It has the proper power regulator so I am able to use Coppermine Slot 1 CPU's and SLotket with socket 370 Pentium 3 cpu. I'm currently running a Pentium 3 900mhz CPU on the P2B mobo using a slotket with the fsb at 100mhz and 512mb of RAM. (Overkill). I use a Voodoo 3 3000 agp for video but I have tested many graphics cards on the system. Gforce 4 ti, and the mx 440. The Mx 440 was perfect. (aside from the Voodoo 3) and I did notice the faster CPU made a difference. You should have no trouble finding a cheap coppermine slot 1 Pentium 3 thats faster than 400mhz. Just make sure its a 100mhz fsb slot 1.

Yes, using a socket to get Pentium 3 to work sounds like a valid option to me. Checked the prices of the Pentium 3 and they are ok as of now. I could even go up to 1 GHZ, but I'm not sure if that is feasible.?

Price wise P3 850 or 900 MHZ would be the most attractive.

But if the jump to the 1ghz range is worth it i would not mind to pay some extra money...

theiceman085 wrote on 2023-06-11, 18:04:

Yes, using a socket to get Pentium 3 to work sounds like a valid option to me. Checked the prices of the Pentium 3 and they are ok as of now. I could even go up to 1 GHZ, but I'm not sure if that is feasible.?

Price wise P3 850 or 900 MHZ would be the most attractive.

But if the jump to the 1ghz range is worth it i would not mind to pay some extra money...

Not all BX440s work normally on the 133FSB bus.
Also, not all video cards tolerate 89 MHz AGP normally.

An economical option is P3 Coppermine 750-800MHz at a 100MHz bus.
In which case, it is almost guaranteed may be overclocked to 133 bus.
https://www.cpu-world.com/CPUs/Pentium- ... 256E).html